Cliffs at Keowee Springs

Unusually configured in three loops of six holes, the Cliffs at Keowee Springs golf course is a Tom Fazio design extending to 7,100 yards from the back tees. It’s set within one of seven private luxury residential mountain and lake club communities in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with membership at this location allowing access to the other six 18-hole layouts.

Featuring 007 bent grass greens, TifEagle bermuda tees, and 419 bermuda fairways and rough, this 18-hole layout can play as short as 4,600 yards or as long as 7,200 yards (with a tough slope rating of 142). Complementing the course, there’s a state of the art 5-green practice facility.

The Keowee Springs course was the 24th that architect Tom Fazio had designed in South Carolina when it opened for play in 2008 – he also laid out the Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards nine years earlier – but since then he’s not added a single layout to his Palmetto State portfolio.

The Cliffs development, which started out in 1991 and grew rapidly in its first two decades of operation, faltered when founder Jim Anthony went bankrupt and the properties were sold in 2012 to Florida-based Arendale Holdings. Seven years later, the Cliffs communities were acquired by South Street partners, a North Carolina private equity real estate investment firm.